Still Failing to Disclose Loot Box Presence: Identifying Illegal UK Video Game Ads Using Meta's Advertising Repository

This preliminary study examines whether UK video game advertisements disclose the presence of loot boxes, as required by advertising rules enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority since 2021 and by industry self-regulation effective from July 2024. Its central argument is that voluntary industry compliance remains weak, and that regulators should act more proactively. The authors draw on Meta's advertising repository, which the EU Digital Services Act requires for EU audiences and which Meta voluntarily extends to the UK, to assess advertisements from a list of 309 games known to contain loot boxes.

Of the 309 titles, 69 were found to have been advertised in the UK, with 618 individual adverts analysed, the ten most recent for each game. Only 9 of the 69 games (13.0%) disclosed loot box presence at least once, and 65 of the 618 adverts (10.5%) did so. Compliance rose from roughly 7% in an earlier 2023 study to 10.5%, a statistically significant change, though the authors question whether a gain of 3.5 percentage points is practically meaningful.

The authors further note that 64 of the 65 compliant adverts came from companies that had been formally censured by the ASA or publicly reported in the media after a single researcher's complaints, suggesting that enforcement rather than voluntary commitment drove nearly all observed compliance. By contrast, a comparison set of 106 South Korean advertisements, where disclosure is legally mandated and punishable by fines or imprisonment, showed 56.6% compliance. The study is a preliminary analysis, with data collection ongoing and a full version scheduled for publication in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions.